The Indian team is facing elimination from the T20 World Cup.
There are already jokes on the internet that World Cup in 2022 will have a quarter-final to ensure India moves into the knock-out stages.
Joking apart, India’s poor performance in the super 12s has come as a big surprise. Every commentator had India as one of their favourites to reach the knock-out stages of the tournament.
What could be the reasons for this abysmal performance of the Indian team in this T20 World Cup?
Picking up an out-of-form team
The core of this Indian T20 team are the players from the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise: Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Surya Kumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and Rahul Chahar.
This same set of guys form the core of the Mumbai Indians team as well in the IPL. With this kind of lop-sided representation, the lack of form of the Mumbai Indians’ team in the just-concluded IPL portended this Indian team’s fortunes in the World Cup.
This composition of the Indian team is one of the reasons why Virat Kohli went to the Mumbai Indians’ dugout during the IPL and tried to cheer up Ishan Kishan when he was struggling for form.
Picking players based on the past form rather than the near-term form is a big danger in T20. A batter cannot use two overs to find form in the middle; a bowler cannot bowl two overs to get his rhythm.
(Photo by Surjeet Yadav/Getty Images)
After having seen the players’ struggles in the IPL, the Indian selectors should have opted for some changes in the team by bringing in-form players like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yuzvendra Chahal and Deepak Chahar in place of some of the struggling players.
Cricket at the highest level is a mind game, and form is ultimately a mental thing.
The luck of the draw and the toss
India playing the two better teams in their group first up might have prevented the team from easing their way into the tournament.
India versus Pakistan is good for the tournament to kick off in style. However, both teams would have preferred to start their tournament with some easier games.
Even if you beat Namibia or Scotland in your first set of games, it does give a positive feeling for the team going into the business end of the group stages.
On the flip side, if you succeed like Pakistan have done in this tournament in beating the three top teams in the group, your confidence ends up sky high going into the knock-outs.
Virat Kohli rarely seems to win important tosses. There is an overwhelming statistical advantage for the teams batting second in the UAE. From the television, it is not clear what the reason could be for this lop-sided statistic.
In India’s game against Pakistan, we could see the dew impacting the bowling in the second innings. However, in the matches that Afghanistan played against Pakistan and the India and New Zealand game, there was no dew on the ground to impact the bowling in the second innings.
New Zealand bowled tight lines and lengths, and the Indian team’s pusillanimity at the top allowed them to stay on those tight lines.
(Photo by Michael Steele-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
Mental fatigue
The Indian team has many of their top players playing all three forms of the game. Some of them are captains of their IPL franchises as well.
Living in COVID bubbles for six months, constantly being under pressure to perform, will impact players. You could see the fear of failure written large on the Indian batsmen’s faces when they played against the Kiwis.
Even Rishabh Pant, who dances down the wicket in Test matches despite the team being seven down for 100 runs to smash bowlers, appeared circumspect.
The untimely social media-created Mohammed Shami episode seems to have added more fuel to the mental disintegration of this team. You have never seen the Indian players react to off-field controversies during a tournament.
Though correct, Virat Kohli’s statement in the media shows a group that had taken in additional mental pressure reacting to these external events.
Virat Kohli’s captaincy
There is something wrong with Virat’s captaincy in white-ball cricket. The long list of failures in the ICC tournaments’ knock-out stages and the IPL shows that he does not know how to win tournaments.
Lack of talent is not an excuse that Virat can give for his failures as captain. It must be the way he impacts the team’s mental aspect that must be the reason for the team’s failures in the knock-out stages.
If the fear of failure that we saw last night is any indication, Virat’s methods seem to hurt the players when under pressure.
(Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
What is the way forward?
India’s T20 approach is too conservative. India’s record in T20 World Cup has been poor since the 2007 victory.
Virat Kohli, the fearless batsman, carried the team in 2014 and 2016. Even in 2016, India was just three balls away from elimination. India needs to re-think their T20 cricket.
The Indian batting with such luxury of talent can’t be this conservative in the power play. They allowed the Kiwi bowlers like Mitchell Santner to bowl tight.
Once you play yourself into a rut, the release shots don’t go into the stands – they often are mistimed.
The selection has to be based on incoming form rather than record. The best team in IPL 2021 was the Chennai Super Kings. Apart from Ravindra Jadeja, there is no other CSK player in the XI.
The selectors should have picked more players from the CSK franchise rather than sticking to the out-of-form team. Winning is a habit. Having more players with that winning feeling helps.
The new T20 captain needs to set the mental aspect right. With the media now using the Indian team for political purposes, the mental pressure on the team will be even greater. The new captain should find a way to relax and let the team play fearlessly.
England under Eoin Morgan bat aggressively and don’t mind getting shot out for less than 100. With this approach, they rarely have been shot out for under 100.
India is a batting-dominated team, and they have to maximise that weapon to win.
Naughty's Headband
Roar Rookie
At least Marnus speaks with an Australian accent.
Tsat
Roar Guru
T20 and tests are like different sport frankly..India is trying to play T20 with test class players..T20 needs power hitters to lead the batting...bowling needs variations aplenty contrary to bowling a channel in tests..
Tsat
Roar Guru
Actually if the selectors had been true to IPL, they would have left out most of the out of form players like Hardik etc..they went with past glory
La grandeur d'Athéna
Roar Rookie
Ritually smashing teams at home? For how long it is going to stand? We were obliterated by New Zealand, Yet to win a single series in South Africa. We have won two back to back series in Australia, perhaps the easiest of all SENA countries given how batting friendly flat surfaces Australia has. And we have retained series against England, which is fair one. Australia has similar types of success, they retained Ashes, and they are only country to defeat New Zealand in New Zealand. They almost defeated us here when they came here last time. New Zealand defeated England in England. How long before teams starting to figure our our batters can not play spin anymore? I could not really understand ritually defeating part given if we add five more years with last five years, we were defeated by both South Africa and England here and barely survived scare from Australia. How does all of these cover for our routine failure in world cups and championship in all sorts of formats?
Just Nuisance
Roar Rookie
Neither is Dawid.. Then again nor is Marnus very Aussie.. :stoked:
whymuds
Roar Rookie
As an Indian supporter, it's hard to get upset about crashing out of T20 WCs given the success we've had in the test arena (proper cricket) over the past 5 years or so. Ritually smashing teams at home, 2 series wins in Oz and on the brink of an away series win in England. I hazard a guess that there would be a few teams that would swap limited overs trophies for 2 test series wins in India. The only blemish is losing the WTC Final to a very good Kiwi team. T20 is a great leveller, and this time around it's not ours to win. In saying all this, we've clearly fallen behind in ODI cricket which to me is slightly more concerning. Way less room for luck in ODI and perhaps it's time for a change in captaincy and approach here.
Pedro The Fisherman
Roar Rookie
They also believe their own press!
La grandeur d'Athéna
Roar Rookie
I agree with the problems described here.But what is the solution? If they are not there for long time then they say they were not familiar with condition, now we send them half a year earlier,then they say it is mental fatigue. If people support them,it is weight of expectations. Otherwise it is lack of support. What are we supposed to do? The part i disagree with is luxury of talent. If we count mediocre players as talent then yes. I also believe the toss factor is being massively exaggerated .
Alex
Roar Rookie
Never mind that the IPL is held every year
Second thoughts
Guest
Dew wasn't an issue in the India v NZ game. India still got shellacked. Something isn't right with the team. They're poorly selected, overly conservative, muddled in their thinking about roles and matchups, and possibly poorly lead.
Naughty's Headband
Roar Rookie
Eoin? That's not a very English name...
Clear as mud
Guest
i think also Finch set the tone in the first over. his first few balls were "I can't play this". so you can imagine Warner and then Smith thinking, well, Finchy's gonna struggle today, I better get cracking. which can explain to some degree Warner's second ball miscalculation, and Smith's uncharacteristic 5th ball hoik. it almost felt like Maxwell was shirlding Finch from the bowling, not the other way around as you might expect. Even when Maxi got out, Finch then had 8 dot balls in a row. Stoinis must have been thinking wtf is going on out here. summary: one of the less impressive 40's, even alowing for England's excellence and the wickets falling.
Clear as mud
Guest
Winning tournaments... one tournament every 4 years, at least 5 teams that can win either format... it's a bit harder than it looks, based on the maths alone?
Tsat
Roar Guru
The title is not what i had given...i had it as just India needs a rethink.:)..BCCI would not have allowed the Indian players to sit out IPL..England have a different nucleas of players for tests..Jason Roy, Eoin Morgan, Jos Butler (didn't play after Lords), Liam Livingstone, the whole bowling unit don't play tests..they were not in bubbles..while Rohit, Rahul, Pant and Kohli are captains of their teams in IPL teams and play all forms..not to miss Bumrah, Shami, SKY, Jadeja who all were in the test squad, IPL and T20 teams..India needs to have a T20 specialist team to ensure mental fatigue issues
Dirk
Guest
I reckon the IPL is more important to a lot of players than this mickey mouse tournament. The fact that there is another T20 'World Cup' in less than 12 months time just shows the lack of esteem it is held in and and prestige it offers. Didn't win this time? Never mind there's another world cup next year.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
“ Cricket at the highest level is a mind game, and form is ultimately a mental thing.”. True as a general rule, but with Tests and ODIs you are safer picking players on long term past form than the last few games of domestic cricket. T20 is more hit and miss in terms of who might succeed at international level, but it’s also a bit of an overreaction to start picking players just because they have done well in the most recent T20 comp. Unless the incumbents are looking really bad as opposed to getting out a few times cheaply, which happens. Not sure if anyone knows how to win tournaments as opposed to playing well – if you don’t play well once or twice it’s not necessarily the captain’s fault, so hard to tell from the outside what impact Kohli has had. Is it more a question of players not responding well to the pressure of expectations? In the Pakistan game, the advantage in bowling first seemed to be that the pitch was doing a lot more early on than when Pakistan batted, and this put India on the back foot. The score looked a lot more one-sided in the Aus vs Eng game because there was a lot more movement when England bowled. In other games dew was a factor in the second innings.
Paul
Roar Guru
This piece makes little sense to me. If the title of the piece is correct, it's all Virat's fault, even though; 1) he was not on the selection panel that chsoe an out of form squad and an out of form team 2) he has no control over who wins the toss 3) he and the rest of the Indian players made conscious choices about playing or not playing in the IPL> Nobody forced them and many, before the WC started, though it was a great idea because they coud get used to the pitches and conditions; So faced with all these things that are almost completely outside his control, it's all Virat's fault? If this had been written before this tournament started, then fair enough, but as it stands, it sounds like sour grapes. England, for example, have had far more time in covid bubbles, etc and look how they're travelling, having played it's 3 toughest group rivals in it's first three games
Jeff
Roar Rookie
What quarters?
Lance Boil
Roar Rookie
When is international football going to to include a 5 a side world cup into their calendar? International T20 is very lucrative I'm sure, but something has gotta give! Players parachuting off planes padded up for the next match, giving interviews on the way down?
Lance Boil
Roar Rookie
I feel much like you do about T20 internationals. Now Sheffield Shield and Test Matches and even 50 overs that's a whole other story!